SDLP Achieves Advance for Irish at St Andrews

 SDLP North Antrim MLA Sean Farren has said that his Party is very pleased with the inclusion of proposals for a language act in the St Andrews settlement. These proposals will be widely welcomed by the many Irish language enthusiasts in North Antrim. Mr Farren said:

 "At the St. Andrew's talks the SDLP raised a variety of Irish language issues as part of the negotiations among them:

• the pressing need for the provision of services in the Irish language through government departments and agencies;
• the need to implement the European charter on minority and ethnic languages

 ”We also stressed that the only way to ensure the rights of Irish speakers is to enact an Official Languages Act similar to that which exists in the South, in Scotland and in Wales.

SDLP also underlined the necessity for guaranteed funding for Irish medium education to enable its growth and the need for special arrangements to be made for Irish medium education in light of the changes envisaged by the Review of Public Administration.

 “It is important that the Irish Medium Council maintains its strong independent advocacy role outside of the single education body. We emphasised the issue of the discrepancy between the amount of spend from the BBC licence fee between Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland. The spend on Irish in Northern Ireland is miniscule compared to the amount spent on Welsh and Scottish Gaelic.

 “The SDLP will continue will ensure that the Irish language is at the top of the agenda at the any forthcoming talks.”